But if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates, the logic is equally clear: securing a plurality of the vote (or delegates) does not provide Trump with any special claim to legitimacy, nor does it give him the mantle of “the people’s choice.”
In this case, a brokered convention that denies him the nomination is not a coup in which the party’s establishment thumbs its nose at the electorate. On the contrary, such an outcome can represent the preferences of many voters, and have an equally powerful claim to be “democratic.”